The Radiant

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The next morning, Ginny woke up behind Lucius, the back of his body pressed into her front, her breasts up against his back, her hands spanned around his torso, fingers pressed lightly into the spaces between his ribs. Waking slowly, she didn’t realize how intimate their position was until he started, too, to rouse and shifted within her embrace. Ginny quickly withdrew her arms, sliding them back to their places at her sides.

His voice was a rumble, starting in her solar plexus and reverberating up through her body.

“Why did you move?”

Ginny lay still.

“I don’t know.” It was the only answer she could give. She wasn’t sure why she had recoiled so quickly. She had just thought that he wouldn’t want to wake up cradled against her – it seemed too much of a childish, coddling thing for such a beautiful, cruel specimen of a man as Lucius. Ginny tentatively placed her hands back on his body, splayed across his shoulder blades, and he hummed softly in assent and appreciation. “You told me you never liked to cuddle. Verbatim.”

“Shut up.”

She smiled, unbeknownst to him, and slid her hands around his back to rest against on his ribcage, stroking at his skin absentmindedly. He didn’t offend her much. Lucius was a cruel person but it made her think that perhaps so was she – if she could just laugh at all of his malicious jibes and take his attitude in stride. Maybe that was what she needed – someone who matched her in that regard.

Moving almost mindlessly, she tucked her face against the back of his neck, resting her lips against his skin, hooking a long, pale leg overtop of both of his thighs. Her arms tightened about him.

“Lucius.” Her voice was muffled, her face tilted into the skin of his upper back.

“Hm?”

She ran her face across his skin a few times, reminding him again of some lithe cat, and she hesitated before speaking.

“What?” He wanted to prompt her, to shake out of her what she was mulling.

“I’m sorry.”

He stiffened almost imperceptibly, but she felt it, and tightened her grip around him as if to anchor him, keep him from fleeing the scene.

“Why?”

“I’m just sorry.” She wasn’t sure why she was apologizing but she felt the need to do it. “For the past. For my family when they are sometimes confrontational. For arguing with you when I first was seeing Draco.” He tensed again underneath her palms and she squeezed at him harder. “You have to hear this, and you have to hear me speak his name because sooner or later, he is going to know. Everyone is going to know.”

“I know.”

Ginny pressed her forehead into his back as hard as she could, her eyes closed but mouth open, dragging her lips across his skin as she breathed increasingly heavily. “Can you handle that?”

“What?”

“That – for me – can you handle that for me? Everyone will know. We will be scorned and insulted and slandered – perhaps forever. Can you handle that?”

Lucius moved in her arms, still remaining facing away from her.

“Yes.”

“Yes?” She tried to keep her voice from becoming hysterical.

“Yes.”

And that was it – she didn’t need the flowered description of love or promises of chivalry. The one, firm word – yes – yes, yes I will weather that for you, I will stand tall and leonine in the face of adversity and curl myself around you to break the storm upon my own self, yes, yes, I know all of this and I know what will happen and still I will remain with you. That one word was all she needed to hear and she licked softly and appreciatively along the skin of his spine, pressing her cheek into him.

“And you?”

His words surprised her but she didn’t even pause in her response.

“Yes. Yes.” Ginny slid a hand from his torso up into his hair and pulled lightly at it, running her fingernails across his scalp and along the ridges of his ears. It was a reassuring, pseudo-motherly gesture, and she found it often helped to relax him.

Lucius hummed lowly and nodded against her hand.

“You are so beautiful.” He started a little at her words, strange as they were. It was rare to hear effusive praise from her – that was one of the things he liked about her. Ginny said what she meant but didn’t slather fake words onto him. Her hand was still in his hair, and she was systematically and firmly pulling small hanks of his hair, slowly relaxing his entire scalp. “You are. You are.” She put her nose to his hair and inhaled. “You make me happy, Lucius. I never thought that would be the case, but you make me very happy.”

One of his large hands came down to cover the hand she had across his waist. Lucius tilted his head back into her, and she tucked her chin into the cranny of his neck and shoulder. Ginny moved her slung leg from where it had looped his thighs and slid it between his legs, feeling the weight of his testicles against her upper thigh.

“Yes.” He said it once more, and Ginny knew that today they would probably not make it to the ruins either, and she was absolutely fine with that.


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When they woke next it was nearly noon.

“Shite.” Ginny looked over at him. She hadn’t heard him swear so coarsely in a while. Lucius had one of his inner wrists laid over his eyes, and his mouth was screwed up. “It’s bloody bright.”

“Stay here.” On her way out of the room, Ginny pulled the drapes tighter, and she could hear him sigh appreciatively from the bed.

On the way to the kitchen, her bare feet made soft sticky noises against the tile. Bugger – it was hot. She hadn’t even pulled on a robe when she left the bedroom, eschewing clothing to be instead freely naked. Ginny only hoped that all of the windows were drawn.

How different of Lucius to sleep in – he was always so officious and so mechanical in his work days, waking early, staying up late, drinking his tea black and strong. She liked the idea of him lounging in bed, at least for one morning. They were on a vacation, after all.

She walked back into the bedroom with a plate in her hand and two mugs hooked precariously in her other, kicking the door open with one strong foot and backing into the room rear-end first. She got a laugh from the bedclothes for that.

“Beautiful presentation.” His voice was teasing.

“Shut up, Lucius.” He had made her smile, her words diluted by her grin.

“What’s that?”

“Daft question. Food. I figure that you’re allowed to stay in bed for as long as you want today.” As she bent over to place the plate on the mattress beside him, his hands came forward and grabbed at her hips, and Lucius pulled her to him, kissing her.

When they parted she grinned at him again.

“My. Affectionate, are we?” She didn’t need the constant affection – she wouldn’t expect it from him anyway. Lucius responded by smacking her bottom sharply with one open palm, taking hold of the flesh there and grabbing it in his hand.

“Don’t be snarky.”

She lay beside him and ate one of the orange slices.

“I’m sorry too.”

They had been eating quietly and companionably for a few minutes, and his voice rent the silence.

“What?”

“I have so much more to be sorry for than you, and you apologized to me.” Ginny turned on her side to face him. His eyes were ahead and he was stalwartly not looking at her, but she felt that the moment was still a big one, a meaningful one. “I almost killed you when you were ten. I was a terrible person, Ginevra. Terrible. I still am a terrible person. And I’m –” he paused for a moment and she wasn’t sure if he would continue but he shook for a moment and then – “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She laid a hand on his thigh and that was when he looked down at her. “How can you forgive?”

Ginny shrugged one shoulder. “It’s too draining not to. It’s too frightening to retain all that hate. You must forgive.”

“And Draco?”

“Draco should forgive, Lucius. He may surprise you yet. Maybe he is … maybe he will… maybe it will work out. And if it doesn’t, we can deal with that. I can deal with that. Draco is, honestly, one of my lesser worries when it comes to revealing our relationship.” She could feel the cords of his thighs move as she spoke the last word. Leaning towards him, she said it again, softer. “You and me, our relationship.”

“Fuck.” His word was breathed. “Fuck. Fuck you. You are too damn good. You are too damn… you are too much to me. Don’t leave. Never leave.”

His hand coiled painfully in her hair and he dragged her up to him, her thighs upsetting the plate between them. As he kissed her, the pulpy, sweet juice from the crushed orange slices soaked into the sheets.

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